Paris 1980. The last mannequin has sashayed haughtily down the catwalk the very model of razor sharp new decade style and disappeared behind the scenes cocksure and proud. A stunned but scintillated press are momentarily mute and then the ovation begins. An unheard of twenty minutes later, the crowd is still on its feet, applauding and yelling ' Bravo' at the top of their fashionable voices in sincere tribute to a new maestro who, is inexplicably absent. The models are waiting to make the triumphant passegiata down the runway, jostling for a prime position to the designer's arm but there is no designer. As the minutes tick by, the question on everybody's lips is indeed: Where art thou, Romeo?

Romeo Gigli loves to tell this story. As passionate as his compatriots, Versace, Ferre, Armani and Valentino, he is nevertheless, remarkably non plussed when it comes to the peripheral show of fashion showings. There is little wanton esotericism in his design credo. He knows what he likes, how he creates, what his inspirations are and what motivates him as surely as he does his phone number and he wastes no time in indulging these two much in conversation.

His clothes are icons not himself and a request for a photo of the designer to accompany this article was politely refused on those grounds. Still, if you are lucky paparrazza, you can catch Romeo slipping in and out of the fashionable haunts from New York to his native Milano, or perhaps dancing chic-to-chic with one of the many luminaries who adore his clothing. This Italian Romeo likes to have fun - and, right now, that is designing fashion.